Henry (Ferror) Farrar (abt. 1440 - 1521)

Descendants

Died 1521 at about age 81 in Ewood Hall, Midgley,West Riding, Yorkshire, England

Biography

• Ewood Hall, Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire.

The property was formerly owned by the Okes family,

Henry Ferrar (Ferror in the records) was a wealthy merchant, and on 10 April 1471 he bought the land, tenants and appurtenances of Eywood (Ewood)., record of a quitclaim by Edmund Pylkington, son of Robert Pylkington Esq. It is believed that on this land he built his manor.^{[citation needed]}

There is no will extant of the first Henry Ferror (Farrar) owner of Ewood, however the second Henrie Ferror , whose will was dated 1548, was a person of wealth, as ”he added a number of proprerties to his possessions; the White Lee estates, land in Hipperholme and Lightcliffe, and a close called Holme in Sowerby, also two messauges called ‘Oldenfrabraough’ with ‘Symyng’ (a building) and all the lands thereto belonging” (The Farrar’s Island Family and It’s English Ancestry, Alvanh Holmes 1977).

There are many myths, earnest and unintentional, about the origin of this family and it's name, as well as variations of the name.

The earliest of the name found was a Ferror and wife (fferror & uxor) as tenants of Johannes Helistones, in Elland, Halifax Parish, Morley Wapentake, York in the subsidy rolls of 1379 (Poll tax of 1371)^[1] In this case it refers to a ferror and his wife, a ferror was a smith.

See: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol7/pp65-77, which mentions Adam the Smith (ferror) as working iron in Horton in 1306.

In 1410-1411 There is a Johannes Ferror (John Ferror) in the Register of the Freemen of York, his occupation was a dyer of wool (litttestar, litster, lister)^[2] Yorkshire, in particular the north, as well as Durham, hold desposits of iron, amongst them the Cleveland or Cliffland deposits, and iron working was a major industry.

The family, known today as Yorkshire Farrars/Farrers or Ferrars, lived in the Calder Valley Region, known for it's pastureage and wool industry. Elland is only 8 miles or so from the Farrar ancestral home of Ewood Hall.

The 1548 Will of Henry Ferror, patriarch of the Virginia and New England Farrars spell the name Ferror.^{[citation needed]}

The 1542 will of Henry Fareher, (Farrar) a cousin of the above Henry Ferror spells the name variously Fareher, Farher. ^{[citation needed]}

The 1666 Visitation of Cumbria Westmoreland, p 43 has a John Fairer of Warcop Tower. There can be no doubt as to his lineage as his armorial bearings are identical to those of John Ferrar of London, father of William of Virginia, and other Farrars.

It is often claimed that, variations of the name include Farrier, Ferris, Farris and Farrow. Of the Farriers, Ferris and Farris none of that name possess the DNA haplogroup of R1a1a1b2 or R-Z93, of the Virginia Farrars. There are descendants of Abraham Farrow of Staindrop, Durham, England and Stafford Co, VA that possess this DNA, but Durham, England was also a iron working center.

The notion that Ferris, Farris, Farrier is a derivative of Farrar or Ferror or a hypercorrected version is hereby refuted.

In some cases, very few, the name was spelled Farrow, as in Abraham Farrow, or when a family descended into illiteracy in America, such was the case of Stephen Farrar son of Richard grandson of William IV, but the family regained literacy and corrected the spelling of the name to Farrar in Alabama by 1830.

There were iron deposits and iron works in the east and south of England, and there arose the surname Farrow, as in John Farrow of Hingham, Norfolk and Hingham, Mass but these families belong to the Saxon/Danish haplogroup of Ii,

There is absolutely no evidence that the Ferrors of Yorkshire, which includes Nicholas Ferrar (au contratemps Pyckard) were descended from Henry de Ferrers, Master of Horse for William [le batard] the Conqueror. And this includes those genealogies based on Judge Timothy Farrar's "Memoir of the Farrar Family", as well as 19th century and early 20th century editions of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. There are some spurious genealogies, easily refuted, posted that try to connect the two families.

Did Henry Ferror marry the already pregnant daughter of Edmund Pilkington?

This bio is admittedly speculative but based on the work of Frank Farrar, published in Tertian Fever: Occasional Papers of the Richard III Society Queensland Branch in 1991. William Farrar

Found in 1938 among the deeds of the Ewood estate Halifax perish, West Riding Yorkshire, was a quitclaim (in Latin) which showed that the property had been acquired by Henry Ferror in 1471.

A few hundred yards to the east of Ewood lived James Harrington of Brearley and of Homby Castle, Lancashire. He was knighted before 1481, and an attainted rebel in Furness Fells after Bosworth, He died in great poverty in 1488. Three Harringtons had died at Wakefield, including his father and a 17 year-old boy.

A few hundred yards to the south-west of Ewood, at Elphaburgh Hall, lived the King's steward, Chief Forester of Sowerbyshire and Keeper of the park at Errenden, John Pilkington, who was knighted in 1471 after Tewkesbury and Chamberlain of the Exchequer in 1477. He died in 1478. With him at the Hall was his bastard son Robert (1450-1497), rewarded by the King on the field of battle after Barnet with the post of Keeper of the Armoury at Pontefract Castle. Sir John's brother Edmund lived either at the Hall or just across the brook on a piece of land called 'Mytholmroyd' and carried out all the paperwork involved in the administration of the three estates, which had formerly belonged to Richard, Duke of York,

In 1470, Edmund Pilkington, brother of Sir John Pilkington While Edward IV was held captive in Middleham Castle, North Riding Yorkshire, Jul – Sep 1469) his younger brother, Richard of Gloucester (Richard III) was a guest at Elfaburgh hall (Elphaburgh), Mythlmoroyd, Halifax Parish, West Riding Yorkshire, was meeting with the Pilkington’s and the Harringtons to plot the release of his brother Edward IV who was then held captive by Richard Neville, 6thEarl of Warwick, at Middleham Castle, North Riding Yorkshire.

While at Elfaburgh, the teenage Richard evidently sowed his oats in a Edmund Pilkington’s daughter, and by Spring of 1470 she was evidently pregnant.

By spring of 1470, it was evident that Edmund’s daughter was quite pregnant, and she needed a husband from the translation of the Latin deed r is realised that the quitclaim was in fact a gift, a gift from Edmund Pilkington, brother of the King's steward. The record of the Pilkingtons was no better [than] that of other people with great power at this period (and, judging from certain documents I had seen, probably much worse). Therefore a gift would only be made to a close relative. This did not seem to make sense. Only the Stanleys were more important than the Pilkingtons, So how was it that Edmund Pilkington would give a gift of land to a poor tenant name of Henry Ferror.

A document listing a few of (Sir) John Pilkington's archers in 1474, including "Herre Ferror" the elder and "Herre Ferror ye yonger" was discovered. A search through "Ferror" extracts from surviving Manor Court Rolls confirmed that the elder Henry Ferror was indeed only a poor man (leasing some land called "The Lumb" from the Pilkingtons) and it seemed likely to have been the younger Henry - possibly only about twenty in 1470 - who had received the gift. If there had not been such a disparity in social status between the two families, the logical assumption would have been that there had been a marriage between young Henry Ferror and a daughter of Edmund Pilkington, but I thought it unlikely that good Pilkington land should have been given away to a common soldier. Evidnetly a marriage had taken place, but only because Edmund Pilkington's daughter had been in disgrace.

But why to a poor commoner, a tenant of the Pilkington’s? And thus explains the gift and the subsequent acquisitions of land from the Pilkington’s. A royal bastard, may be a bastard,but has potential of being shown at court and legitimized thus needs a proper education, tutoring, and nutrition, as well as being taught the manners and protocol expected of a royal, and that costs money and to acquire money requires land from which to make money, and the Ferror’s thought to descend from a maker of steel, were by 1400 dyers of wool.

The start of a woolers dynasty starts with this 1470 gift, by 14 April 1471, they had acquired enough wealth to purchase land on the Midgley Moor, which they named Little Ewood, with Great Ewood being the original holding across Cragg Brook, bounded by the Calder River in what is Mythlmroyd.

The child of the union with the Pilkington girl and Richard of Gloucester was eventually presented at court, and most likely John of Gloucester who was beheaded by Richard III or his half sister Katherine Plantagenet who was 2md wife of William Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke.

The happy couple went on to parent their own brood, which became the Farrars of Yorkshire.

PILKINGTON LANDS PASSED TO THE FERRORS OF EWOOD, 1538-1540

1538 - Two messuages with lands in Midgley and Halifax, to Henry Ferror.

1539 - Two messuages with lands in Hurst, Wadsworth and Heptonstall, to John Ferror.

1539 - Five messuages with lands in Langfield, Heptonstall, Sowerby and Halifax, to Henry Ferror.

1540 - Twelve messuages with lands at Greenhurst and Ashenhurst in Stansfield, to Henry Ferror.

(Note that Greenhurst was to have been Robert [Pilkington] the bastard's sole inheritance, along with the Wistowe lands, but for the death of his legitimate half-brother. Therefore it must have been of some value.)

It is perhaps also significant that even Elphaburgh itself passed into Henry Ferror's hands at this time (1538), but it does not appear on this list from Feet of Fines. This may be because he purchased it, for £40. Even the price paid points to something unusual, since although 40 acres plus other buildings were included with the Hall the next generation of Ferrors there were able to mortgage the Hall and just six acres for £126. (Henry seems to have given the Hall to his brother John.)

The above list totals 21 messuages, nine of which mount to 486 acres. It seems beyond the bounds of probability that much of this could be by purchase, given that it is such a large amount in such a short time and from only one source. What proportion were gifts known yet, but it is obvious from a later Deed that there had been more than one since in 1545 Henry Ferror surrendered some land to his brother John which "inter alia, he had of the gift of Robert Pilkington, deceased."

Sources

1. ↑ Subsidy Roll (Poll Tax) for 1379 for the Yorkshire parish of Halifax, transcribed from The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journals, Genuki.
2. ↑ Register of the Freemen of York... A Google book. Pg. 115+

Acknowledgments

• Thank you to William Farrar for creating Ferror-9 on 27 Aug 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by William and others.